The present invention relates generally to rotary mowers for severing standing crop material by impact action and, more particularly, to an improved disc cutter rotary assembly used in disc cutterbars of the type utilizing intermeshing gears for the transmission of rotary power.
The development of disc cutterbars has resulted in the provision of a low, compact drive profile so that the flow of severed crop material is not impeded over the surface of the cutterbar. Such a cutterbar construction can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,365,462, issued on Dec. 28, 1982. While this particular disc cutterbar configuration provides the compact profile, the rotor assembly is a captive unit whose individual components are neither serviceable nor removable from the assembly without causing damage to the other components.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a low, compact cutterbar profile while retaining the serviceability aspects of the individual components of the disc cutter rotor assembly.